– Daniel Greenfield
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants an investigation into Koran burning. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer suggested that this form of free speech could be banned. Senator Lindsey Graham is also looking for ways to limit free speech, saying, “Free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war”.
Free speech is more than a great idea, it’s a fundamental freedom untouchable by legislators. But all it takes is a few Muslim murders— and Reid, Breyer and Graham eagerly hold up their lighters to the Constitution. Free speech has been curtailed before in the United States during a time of war—but only free speech sympathetic to the enemy. During WW1 a suspected German propagandist filmmaker was jailed. But could anyone have imagined anti-German propagandists being jailed? The Wilson administration was behaving unconstitutionally, but not insanely.
Today we aren’t jailing filmmakers who traffic in anti-American propaganda in wartime. If we did that half of Hollywood would be behind bars. Instead Democratic and Republican Senators are discussing banning speech offensive to the enemy. Because even though they’re killing us already—we had better not provoke them or who knows how much worse it will become.
Traditionally it’s the victors who give their laws to the defeated. But massive immigration at home and nation building occupations abroad mean that the defeated of failed states are imposing their Sharia law on us. We’re asked to trade in our Constitutional freedoms out of fear of Muslim violence. And so the murderers impose the terms of peace on us. And then don’t abide by them.
Violence in the Muslim world is a constant
Violence in the Muslim world is a constant. We have been fighting Muslim violence since George Washington’s time. And we have been subject to it even longer. Whether it’s Muslims killing Hindus, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians or any and every religion under the sun—there is a pattern here. It’s a story as old as time. And it’s not one that we can stop by ladling out honeyed words of appeasement.
Senator Graham warns us to shut up in a time of war—but is there any foreseeable future in which we won’t be fighting in a Muslim country? Democrats elected the most anti-war candidate of the bunch only to see him begin his 2012 reelection campaign by bombing another Muslim country. And what’s surprising about that. Most of the trouble spots in the world that directly or indirectly affect us are located in Muslim countries. The major threat to the United States comes from the Muslim world. And that means we’re going to be tied up dealing with the Muslim world in one way or another, whether as soldiers, diplomats or aid workers. And even if we weren’t—there are hundreds of thousands of Americans still living and working in Muslim countries. Hostages to the latest Muslim temper tantrum.
As Muslim terror has gotten worse, we have started treating the Muslim world like a ticking bomb
As Muslim terror has gotten worse, we have started treating the Muslim world like a ticking bomb—tiptoeing around them to avoid setting them off. Whatever they don’t like about us, we’re willing to change. The paradigm of the angry dog or the ticking bomb means that we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. Whatever you do, the dog mauls you and the bomb blows up. But by pretending that you control the situation, you can feel better about your role in the outcome.
When a man teases a dog on the other side of a chain link fence—we blame the man for provoking the dog, not the dog for being provoked. Animals have less of everything that makes for accountability. And so don’t hold them accountable. Instead we divide them into categories of dangerous and harmless, and treat them accordingly.
Our response to Muslim violence in Afghanistan, supposedly touched off by a Koran burning in Florida, uses that same canine logic. The Muslims are dangerous and violent, so whoever provokes them is held accountable for what they do. Don’t tease a doberman on the other side of a chain link fence and don’t tease Muslims on the other side of the border or the world. That’s the takeaway from our elected and unelected officials.
But the Muslim rioters are not dogs, they are human beings whose moral responsibility is being denied by treating their violence as a reflexive act. Their violence is not unconscious or instinctual—it emerges out of a decision making process. There is nothing inevitable about what happened in Afghanistan. If Muslims had some sort of hair trigger, then why was the violent rioting confined to a very specific part of the world. For the same reason that the reaction to the cartoons took so long. And why was it directed at the UN and not the US. The Koran burning was not the cause of Muslim violence—but a rationalization for existing violence that would have occurred anyway for reasons having nothing to do with Terry Jones. And by treating Muslims like the ‘Morally Handicapped’ who have no choice but to kill when something offends them, we are not doing any favors for them or us.
It is far more insulting to treat Muslims as if they have no ability to control themselves and have no responsibility for their actions—than it is to burn their Koran. That is an assessment that even many Muslims would agree with.
To blame Jones for their actions, we must either treat murder as a reasonable response to the burning of a book, or grant that Jones has a higher level of moral responsibility than the rioters do. There are few non-Muslims who could defend the notion that burning the Koran is a provocation that justifies bloodshed. And virtually no liberal would openly concede that he believes Muslims are morally handicapped—but then why does he treat them that way?
If a Christian had torched a mosque in response to the Muslim arson of churches in Africa—is there any liberal columnist or pundit who would have directed the lion’s share of the blame at the original Muslim arsonists? No. The mosque burning would be treated as an independent act with no linkage to the church arsons. That is the attitude of Western jurisprudence which does not allow one crime to justify another, let alone one provocation to justify a crime. Individuals are treated as responsible moral actors—not shooting balls in a pinball machine. Why then does this standard fly out the window when it comes to Muslims? Why does the press so easily sink into the rhetoric of ‘retaliation and ‘provocation’, treating Muslim terrorism as a reflex, rather than a chosen act.
Is it not because for all their fanciful prose about the Religion of Peace, they do indeed see Muslims as dogs on the other side of a chain link fence. “Don’t tease the dog, son, and it won’t hurt you.”
Liberalism begins as condescension toward lower class violence and culminates in complicity with it
Liberalism begins as condescension toward lower class violence and culminates in complicity with it. Class warfare treated the poor as less morally responsible than the rich because of their deprivation and persecution. By treating physical deprivation as equivalent to moral deprivation, they became guilty of a far worse prejudice than those they were combating. They had declared that the poor were subhuman. When class warfare gave way to race warfare, they repeated the same ugly trick, romanticizing the Black Panthers and empowering thugs and rioters who destroyed black and white communities. The discriminated against were not bound by the same moral code as the discriminators. Their violence was ‘purer’ because it was a reflex against their conditions that they could not control. And so liberals who lectured ceaselessly about racism, were treating minorities as less than human.
Now in the age of Globalism—Muslims are the new oppressed, exempted from the norms of civilized society. The morally handicapped who cannot be expected to turn the other cheek, the way we’re supposed to.
But Muslims are not morally disabled—they are immorally enabled. Muslim violence is a choice. Their choice. It is not a reflex or a reaction or a pinball bouncing off the cycle of violence. It is not something that we are responsible for. It is something that they and only they are responsible for. By pretending otherwise, we are immorally enabling them. Treating them like mad dogs or ticking time bombs just guarantees that they will play their part and fulfill our expectations by mauling or exploding.
We have never held Muslims morally accountable for anything they do. Not as a religion or as countries or individuals. Instead we pretend that Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi are the problem. A handful of extremists and a few bad leaders somewhere. Not the people themselves. Never them.
Instead we have treated Muslims as the morally handicapped, too morally feeble to understand that violence is not the answer to everything from your daughter sneaking out with a boy to a pastor torching the Koran for a BBQ. And they have reacted exactly as people do when they know they will not be held accountable for their actions.
Treating someone as dangerous gives them power over you. They will test that power and then use it. Allowing yourself to be intimidated is the first step to being defeated. For many it is also the last step. We treated Muslims as dangerous and then we insist loudly that we love them very much and aren’t afraid of them at all. Guess who we’re fooling? Only ourselves. Every time there’s a terror alert or American politicians talk about the wonders of the Koran—the Muslim world sees it as evidence of their power over us. And when a Koran is burned, that just means we need further intimidating. It’s a cycle of violence, but we’re not the ones driving it except through our appeasement.
Muslims have stifled their own moral development—but we haven’t helped either. And the only way we can do that is to push them toward a moral reckoning. Instead we have bought into their genocidal narrative, enabled their violence and empowered the murderous aspects of their ideology. It’s time that stopped. Lies and flattery will not prevent the violence. Only the confrontation of truth can force a moral reckoning.
Senator Graham wishes there was a way to hold Koran burners accountable for violence carried out by Koran readers, but what we really need is a way to hold Koran believers accountable for their own violence.
That’s the best you deserve.
You measure how long it takes for people to read by comparing timestamps between on comment to another? Who knew!
Oh, bury your dead.
You apparently took all of six minutes (or less) to read what I wrote and snap that off.
And typically, you missed the point, which is that “Chosenness” is not about the Chosen
but about the Chooser.
Yet you were so swallowed up in your own bile that all you could see was a chance to get off a shot,
and a cheap one at that.
That’s the best you could do?
I think Yamit’s use of the word “should”, rather than “does”, is being overlooked by you.
In any case…
You’re not one of us.
That’s a proposition fraught with logical AND philosophical problems. I suppose one could say observant Jews are more “purely” Jewish than anybody else is. But for anything beyond that kind of circular (thus meaningless) assertion, an abyss yawns.
Look, if by “more pure,” Yamit, you mean a Jew is more innocent of guilt — or is rendered so by halakhic (or otherwise interpolated, torahnic) observance — that raises a pile of metaphysical questions.
For example (among several that one could cite), is moral guilt a factor only of what somebody does or fails to do?
Does MOTIVE (or mixture of motives) have no bearing on guilt? That is, can you be guilty of, say, doing the right thing for the wrong reasons?
Or guilty of doing the right thing, in a single given instance, for reasons that are, some of them, worthy — and others, downright putrid, or even despicable?
If motive, or admixture of motives, does taint someone’s moral bearing, then how can there be anything within a finite man’s power that he does (or abstains from doing) whereby he can relieve himself of his own existing, motive-generated guilt? (Might he not just as well try pulling himself up by his own bootstraps?)
Surely if he had such power or authority (to say nothing of understanding) to begin with, then he wouldn’t need such ceremonial devices in the second place,
because his self-possession wouldn’t have permitted him to have become motivationally guilty in the first place.
What’s more, if ritual could nullify motivational taint, wouldn’t that be tantamount to a “get-out-of-jail-free” card, licensing him to ignore motive again the next time out?
Don’t misunderstand:
I’m not suggesting there’s no value whatsoever in observance — it certainly has the capacity of at least keeping a person (and a community) from “going off the deep end.” In that respect, it has its place and I have no problem defending it against its detractors.
I just don’t think it has — of itself — the capacity to purify anybody. (And “pure” was the point-of-departure for this post.)
I mean, is it really an improvement over other ritualistic observances, such as, “Say two Hail Mary’s and three Our Father’s, and make an Act of Contrition. Next!”
[No offense to our RC friends who may have bothered to read this far.]
So far as I can tell, Yamit, Jews are indeed Chosen not because they’re “more pure” than gentiles, but in spite of the fact that they aren’t. The Election (the “Chosenness”) is NOT about us; it’s about Him. And His prerogatives. Just as His promises (most of them) are not provisional but absolutely unconditional.
And for the same reason as The Election: It’s not about us; it’s about Him. And His integrity. It’s always been about Him. (Humiliating for us, to be sure, but that’s an integral part of what it means to BE Chosen.)
Which is precisely why it is that when our enemies try to deny us the Land — as well as The Election — their target is only superficially us.
That is, the targeting is certainly real, intentional and consequential, but their REAL target — unarticulated and largely unconscious — is He.
Maybe you shouldn’t kill a peacock.
But it’s impossible to ‘murder’ one.
You already know that — while I have no use for sport hunting unrelated to the satisfaction of strictly determined, human needs for food & security, and no use either for deliberate cruelty to animals (under any circumstances) — nevertheless I see no sense in characterizing the killing of animals (kindly or cruelly) as “murder.”
The very expression as applied that way [the ‘murder of animals’] grates on the ear. It sounds weirdly reminiscent of the kind of loopy “animal-rights” argot that keeps trying to get a foothold (amazingly & quite perversely) in the broader US culture.
Kindness to animals isn’t about their ‘entitlement.’
It’s about our DUTY. That’s why we call it “humane” —
the root of which is human.
Lo tirzakh simply does not apppertain to animals — any more than any of the other Dibrot (in the Decalogue) does. The only time animals are even mentioned in the Dibrot, it is as possessions of men.
This was supposed to “remove any doubt”?
Even without “passion,” there are so many restrictions on US troops in the field — maybe more than on Tzahal (Purity-of-Arms Doctrine notwithstanding) that I hardly think it anything but BIZARRE to assert that their killing is “without any higher moral or ethical reasons or purpose to justify the act.”
Either I’m missing something in your meaning, Yamit, or you are missing something in its implications.
Don’t know how long ago you made aliyah, but you should know that things have changed greatly for the American GI over the past couple of decades — and enormously so since Abu Ghra’ib.
The restrictions may not actually tie their hands physically (not yet!) but they sure-as-hell do tie their brains when it comes to defending themselves.
Their killing is hardly amoral.
No, I can’t see how anyone with more than half a brain cannot understand this:
I was born perceptive. However, please explain how you would ensure they never become a majority in every Muslim majority country without becoming savage barbarians ourselves?
Israel was not even able to ensure this in the West Bank and Gaza.
I keep forgetting you have just returned from Mars. The rest of already know the answer to your question by observing what goes on in all the Muslim majority countries and areas in the world.
A savage Muslim majority country that is truly civilized in the face of real or imagined religious provocations is an oxymoron.
This is idle speculation. I live in the real world.
The pastor is a Christian like you are a Jew. To begin with he is a self-proclaimed pastor to about 50 families, so he is not like a real pastor. Secondly, he did not do what Jesus would have done.
How can I refuse to avail myself of the offer to help me understand how Muslims behave — here — there — minority — majority — who knows? You can see how easily one can get confused and need your enlightened instruction.
You say, I quote:: “when Muslims are in the majority they are far more likely to behave like savage barbarians than when they are in the minority.”
That’s perceptive. Is it then fair to infer it would be best to ensure they never become a majority so they will be less likely to revert to savagery, even if civilized. Do I have that right or am I still confused?
If Muslims become a majority is everyone to be fearful and forever walk on eggshells in mortal fear of speaking one’s mind and saying something the majority finds worthy of decapitation? Saudi Arabia comes to mind. I wonder if the citizens of Dearborn and the local newspapers and the University of Michigan faculty, for example, are restrained in the free expression of their thoughts. Banish the thought!
You can see why we need your help.
An afterthought did occur as I read your observation of a predilection of a Muslim majority to savagery even if civilized. Perhaps there’s an insight here, That is to say Islam is after all a relatively new “religion,” only a few hundred years, give or take a couple of centuries. When enough time shall have passed Islam may become a much more civilized society, in the western mode, perhaps, and like other established and recognized religions, more tolerant because more civilized, their majority status notwithstanding. The Christian majority comes to mind.
Ask the Pastor,he’s a Christian.
Don’t worry, I forgive you. I specialize in straightening out confused thinking as long as it takes. The Qu’ran requires Muslims to defend the faith, not behave like savage barbarians. You used this to build a straw man that the Qu’ran required them to behave like savage barbarians, even after you saw that the Afghan Muslims behaved differently than the American Muslims.
Not quite. You are still confused by your serial straw men. The Qu’ran doesn’t differentiate between Muslim countries. However, Muslim in Muslim majority countries behave differently than Muslims that are in the minority in a country.
Oy, veh! This guy is more confused than I thought.
No, Martin, you have it backwards. If they become the majority, as they are in Afghanistan, they become more like savage barbarians, not less, a la Dearborn. You as a Jew, would become halal food for the fishes.
Martin, there was really no need to define youself for us. We can see it from what you write and all the straw men you build and your wilfully confusing “requirements to defend the faith” with “requiring them to be savage barbarians”, not to mention being unable to see how Muslims behave when they are in the majority – think Gaza – and when they are in the minority – think Dearborn and Israel.
You have repeated yourself enough. We have understood your problem.
To fix it, just remember, a) a requirement to defend the faith is NOT a requirement to behave like savage barbarians, and b) when Muslims are in the majority they are far more likely to behave like savage barbarians than when they are in the minority.
Repeat this daily first thing when you awake and last thing before you sleep, and, in a few months you may get it. If not, Allah willing and the creek don’t rise, I will still be here to help you.
American Eagle. Thank you for your response. You will forgive me if I am confused. I thought you said you know what the Quran requires of Muslims.
This is what you said:” “the Qu’ran requires them to defend the faith which is under attack”
You also said” “I did not justify the behavior of the Muslim barbarians, simply observed what the Qu’ran required.”
I then raised the question to you whether that [strict observance to the Qu’ran] is sufficient ” … justification of their behavior no matter how much you say you deplore the manner of their defense. [I’m beginning to repeat myself]
Now you say I am confused. You say I have built a “straw man.” Please elucidate for you now say :” “Defending the faith” does not require the “savage response” we saw from the Muslims in a Muslim majority country like Afghanistan. Savagery is not requires burning a book The faith can be defended in a more civilized manner as we saw from the Muslims in Dearborn.”
In another exchange I then wondered if here is something about geography that accounts for the different response as to what is required of the Believers. Are the Afganistans uncivilized Muslims? I said I think its safe to say the Imams in Dearborn would not dare use the burning of the book as an occasion for religious hate speech and incitement “requiring” the Believers to go on a frenzied spree of incoherent murder. Why not? [ I am beginning to repeat myself]
I did not know how to explain the savagery observed in a foreign country that was occasioned by a legally protected act of a Pastor in the United States that ought to have been none of their business yet precipitated such universal condemnation and vile hatred on him, both abroad and domestically,
I see. There was no murderous rampage witnessed in this country because Muslims here are civilized.
Are you then willing to concede a savage response is not absolutely required, as you say of the civilized response of the good people in Dearborn. You say “Muslims behave more civilized when they live in a law abiding society as a minority.
I now see there’s another factor. It is not the Qur’an that dictates what is required of believing Muslims. Is it only required of Muslims who are in the Majority of a country? I thought it was geography alone but now I see it’s also a matter of proportion. As long as Muslims are in the minority we can be spared a savage response to perceived insults. Is that it?
It’s not just geography but demographic majority status that sets the point at which they are required to engage in intimidation and murdering the unbelievers for the crime of insulting their book or Mohammed. Is that it?
Is that what accounts for the response “required” by Muslims in Afghanistan but not of Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan? Once Muslims become demographically the majority in this country can we be assured they will protest amicably as civilized citizens, as would be expected by the burning of a Torah or the New Testament of other faiths. [ I am beginning to repeat myself.]
Permit me close with a definition of a bore. A bore is a person who will not come to the point. But a Great Bore is a person who continues to talk after he has made his point. Fearful of being called a Great Bore who is also a confused man from Mars who builds straw men in the air I do not think there is anything more I can say that would not be repeating myself.
Thank you for the exchange.
Which somehow confused Martin enough to write:
Martin builds a straw man. “Defending the faith” does not require the “savage response” we saw from the Muslims in a Muslim majority country like Afghanistan. The faith can be defended in a more civilized manner as we saw from the Muslims in Dearborn.
It’s not geography but majority status. Muslims behave more civilized when they live in a law abiding society as a minority.
You have built a straw man that “defending the faith” requires a savage response. It does not as we saw from the responses in Dearborn.
American Eagle, First let me say I do not wish to put words on your keyboard, It was the ungrammatical random order in which you put them that confused me. I do respectfully want to understand what you are writing and all I can know is what you write.
For example, You say:
“Martin writes:
the Qu’ran requires them to defend the faith which is under attack.
Martin did not say:
“….the Qu’ran requires them to defend the faith which is under attack…” You said that.
In reply to that statement I asked is that —“…justification of their behavior no matter how much you say you deplore the manner of their defense.
You now reply “I did not justify the behavior of the Muslim barbarians, simply observed what the Qur’an required”
If the savage response is what is required by the Believers of the Qur’an can you explain what accounts for the response “required” by Muslims in Afghanistan but not of Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan. Is there something about geography that accounts for the different response as to what is required of the Believers. I think it’s safe to say the Imans in Dearborn would not dare use the burning of the book as an occasion for religious incitement “requiring” the Believers to go on a frenzied spree of incoherent murder. Why not?
If Believers in Dearborn would agree the response was inappropriate at this time, that it is not required by the Faith at this time. Then it is logical to infer any American citizen or Internet Pundit or newspaper editorial writer who sharply denounced the Pastor describing him in the most vile of terms is a hypocrite, different only in form from Harry Ried, Stephen Breyer and Lindsey Graham.
I believe you will agree.
Now, here, Sir, I am putting words on your keyboard.
A modest request to American Eagle. Would you kindly agree to not put words on my keyboard?
I did not justify the behavior of the Muslim barbarians, simply observed what the Qu’ran required.
Since your assumption is false, the rest of your comment is null and void.
Ok the killing is dispassionate and without any higher moral or ethical reasons or purpose to justify the act.
No one believes in ethical homogeneity: Polynesian cannibals are not similarly ethical to leftist academics; obviously, cannibals are much more ethical. Many Americans believe that people of non-democratic countries are barbarians. France acted unethically when opposing the Iraqi invasion meant to stop Saddam’s atrocities. The Balance-of-power strategy is pronounced unethical.
If people are differently ethical, it is plausible that Jews can be more ethical than Gentiles.
Observant Jews refrain from unnecessary murder of animal species according to kosher laws, do no harm to their neighbors, testify honestly, avoid homosexuality and adultery, and adhere to many other laws, which should make Jews morally pure. More pure than those who derive pleasure from killing animals, they find it impossible to love every human being and embrace deviations.
My point is no defense of Muslims but placing so called western civilizations and their ethics, morality and actions on a plane not much higher in many respects than that of the Muslims.
So my point is to raise the point of similarities between ethical and non-ethical cannibals.
A modest request to American Eagle. Would you kindly agree to logically organize your points in counter to a point I have made since I am confused when you extract and quote from more than one comment interspersed with other comments at different times without a line of logical reasoning and argument in some orderly progression. Thank you.
Now permit me to comment on only one statement you made, as follows:”… the Qu’ran requires them to defend the faith which is under attack” You say that in justification of their behavior no matter how much you say you deplore the manner of their defense.
Have you given thought to what you have written. If defending the faith means the faithful can be easily incited by their learned officials to proceed to the wholesale murdering of innocent people because a certain printed book peculiar only to them has been damaged somewhere does that not tell you something more than just to deplore the deed? Does that not tell you something about the demands made on the faithful in the name of Islam and the character of it’s adherents and the flash danger this poses to the innocent.
Here is a pointed example that ought to be on this site for all to see
From Dr. Eldad:
I was instrumental in establishing the Israeli National Skin Bank, which is the largest in the world. The National Skin Bank stores skin for every day needs as well as for war time or mass casualty situations.
This skin bank is hosted at the Hadassah Ein Kerem University hospital in Jerusalem where I was the Chairman of plastic surgery. This is how I was asked to supply skin for an Arab woman from Gaza , who was hospitalized in Soroka Hospital in Beersheva, after her family burned her.
Usually, such atrocities happen among Arab families when the women are suspected of having an affair. We supplied all the needed Homografts for her treatment. She was successfully treated by my friend and colleague Prof. Lior Rosenberg and discharged to return to Gaza .
She was invited for regular follow-up visits to the outpatient clinic in Beersheva.
One day she was caught at a border crossing wearing a suicide belt. She meant to explode herself in the outpatient clinic of the hospital where they saved her life. It seems that her family promised her that if she did that, they would forgive her.
This is only one example of the war between Jews and Muslims in the Land of Israel.It is not a territorial conflict. This is a civilizational conflict, or rather a war between civilization & barbarism.
Bibi (Netanyahu) gets it, Obama does not.
I have never written before asking to please forward onwards so that as many as possible can understand radical Islam and what awaits the world if it is not stopped.
Dr Arieh Eldad
Some sophist will argue the woman aided by the Doctor was not a savage–she was rationally seeking acceptance and self-preservation from her family in the only way she belived possible.
I’ve have come to conclude the two civilizations are simply incomprehensible, one to the other. Like infinite density on zero space. Then what should anyone do? Everyone will simply wait till the time comes wnen we are shoved into answeing that question.
Martin
mdk4130@aol.com
Yamit:
Friendly suggestion.
I don’t think you meant by this to say that they kill for the sheer pleasure of killing.
However, your phraseology could easily be taken to mean just that.
If it wasn’t what you meant, I suggest you remove any doubt.
Yes – because burning their holy book did nothing to expose what is in it. If he meant to critique Islam, there are plenty of excerpts he could have used from the book and explained what was wrong with them.
Martin, It seems like you have even learned to THINK like a Martian:-)) I know of all those other things and their consequences BECAUSE I was NOT on Mars. Had I been on Mars I would be as uninformed and unaware as you.
If those other events, which only tangentially demeaned Islam, could cause such wide-spread mayhem among Muslims, than only a Martian would be unable to predict that burning the Qu’ran, an attack on Islam itself and the word of God in their minds – would not cause some deadly mayhem somewhere in the Muslim world.
Oy, veh! More Martian thinking! The exposure would not be to the savages, but to the others who think that Islam and its teachings are benign. Islam is being critiqued all over the internet, and even in Congressional hearings in the US, without any rioting and burning and killing. Wise up.
Why are you repeating what I said?
The faux-pastor was not trying to mollify anyone – he was trying to demean, and insult them which he succeedes in doing. In the meantime he did not warn anyone about what was in the book. He only proved he was a moron.
Daniel agrees with me that what the pastor did was constitutionally protected. However, I disagree with Pipes that the pastor was critiquing Islam under an civilized imperative or standard – he was attacking it, and the Qu’ran requires them to defend the faith when it is under attack. Unfortunately, they killed innocent people who had not attacked Islam, which is what defines them as barbarians.
Haven’t you figured out by now that the author of the comment is the Jewish equivalent of the Muslim radicals?
You are asking me a hypothetical and i can only speak for myself on this. If it were done in my presence and I knew who the bastards were. I would track them down one by one. Killing them would not be ruled out if in the course of my retribution they resist violently. What might my retribution entail ? Still hypothetically: Burn their homes and or businesses down. bombing their cars boats or anything they may value. Of course they must know why it was done so a video of the acts against them with explanation would be uploaded to You Tube, and copies sent to every blogger I can reach on the net.
Muslim concepts of vengeance pretty much mirror Jewish concepts. An attack by a non Muslim against any Muslim is deemed by them to be an attack on all Muslims. They value their symbols even if they can’t intellectualize the reasons. Cultures in the ME are not the same as the American middle West. They have a strong tribal concept of honor and the West has almost no concept of honor. Many Muslims will give up their own lives or take someone else’s lives over their sense of honor and their religious beliefs are part of that system.
I haven’t complained here I fully expect Muslims to behave as proud Muslims defending their beliefs in the way they understand it. Not that I agree but I understand. You might go to a football game to vent your spleen but they vent by rioting and pillaging. It’s a cultural thing.
You may not be a cannibal, Cannibals are honorable folk. You have either acted or supported the mass murder of millions just in the past century. A cannibal might kill and eat his enemies one at a time or a few at a time but your civilized compatriots kill for the sake of killing. I would not like being on the receiving end of massive carpet bombing or being attacked with agent orange. (chemical warfare).
Compared to the technical west our primitive cannibals can’t light a candle to the neo cannibals of western civilization. Who then are the real cannibals?
Like Hell you don’t!!!
FROM THE MIDDLE EAST FORUM:
Then there are the countless atrocities that never make it to any media—the stories of persistent, quiet misery that only the victims and local Christians know.
One would have thought that all this [ Citation of Muslim anti-Christian savagery ]and was at least equally deserving of media attention and Western condemnation as the burning of a Koran. This is especially so considering that, whereas only Jones is responsible for his actions, many of the aforementioned savageries—arresting and executing Christian missionaries and Muslim apostates, destroying or outlawing churches, seizing and desecrating not one but thousands of Bibles—are carried out at the hands of Muslim authorities and governments deemed U.S. “friends-and-allies.”
Such is the surreal and increasingly irrational world we live in, where irate Muslims and groveling Westerners obsess over the destruction of one book while ignoring the destruction of many human lives; where a guaranteed and hard-earned American right—freedom of expression—receives a lot of condemnatory huffing and puffing from those charged with protecting it, while murderous and barbarous—in a word, evil—behavior is devoutly ignored.
Raymond Ibrahim is associate director of the Middle East Forum
IS THERE SOMEONE, ANYONE, ON THIS LIST WHO CAN EXPLAIN TO ME WHY WE GROVEL? WHY ARE WE CRAVEN? THERE MUST BE SOMETHING QUITE OBVIOUS I MUST BE MISSING.
How many antiwar or anti-WTO protests have you personally witnessed?
“Peaceful” may hardly be said to belong in the same breath with “typical” regarding these.
If that’s not apparent to you, then may I suggest that this is because the lamestream media that ‘reports’ on them is essentially sympathetic to their objectives and takes great care to manage the imagery it allows to emerge from many of these events into the public consciousness.
Your point is sound, and there are myriad other, less provocative occurrences that could be ADDED to your list.
I would note, however, that the Sharon visit to Har HaBayit does not properly fit into the series, as the “Camp David Intifada,” otherwise known as the Oslo Terror War — which supposedly was ‘triggered’ by the visit — was planned (quite meticulously planned, in fact) months beforehand.
Numerous PA officials openly and repeatedly (and proudly) acknowledged afterward that they had had every intention of resorting to violence & mayhem at the end of the Camp David talks of 2000, come hell-or-high-water.
Sharon had in fact gone out of his way to avoid any suggestion of disrespect, etc, in his visit by first asking — and receiving — PERMISSION from the Waqf [the Muslim Trust responsible for administering the Mount] well before going anywhere near the place.
Everything about the terror war was orchestrated. There was nothing incendiary about its origins except in the minds of the perpetrators.
May I quote a scholar’s comment which I agree with completely:
“However distasteful, Jones’ act is both legal and non-violent. He is not responsible for the 43 deaths; the repugnant, barbaric ideology of Islamism is to blame. When will U.S. politicians realize this basic fact and stand up robustly for the civil liberties of American citizens? Critiquing Islam, tastefully or distastefully done, is a Constitutional right. Indeed, done intelligently it is a civilizational imperative.
Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
So we’re told — but while I could point you to many, many Jews who would fast and rend their garments — in the manner of mourning — upon the burning of the Scrolls, I rather seriously doubt that [Yamit notwithstanding] you would have a very easy time of it finding Jews willing to kill (or otherwise harm) anybody to avenge the outrage.
Muslims have made it, again & again, abundantly clear (and not just in a theoretical sense) that they would be offended if their co-religionists were NOT prepared to deal out death to such burners of their scriptures.
What’s wrong with porcine metaphors coming from a Jew?
I use them all the time.
Always have.
It’s no secret (even to Jews) that pigs exist, and that while classified as unclean, they are still part of God’s creation.
It’s one thing to forego ingesting the swine’s flesh (or fat or other body products, etc), but quite another to avoid talking about them. The notion that even referring to the species altogether in the course of communication amounts to, well, frankly,
a pile of pig plop.
Yamit writes:”Yes a book can be replaced and a Torah Scroll can be replaced but an attack is an attack and it must be answered with maximum force and zeal as is appropriate in defense of Jewish beliefs.”
Yamit, I am sympathetic to your view. But what is “maximum force and zeal as is appropriate?” Go on a rampage and kill innocent people? Bomb the Kaaba? Is that appropriate? Your religion has no “police force” to capture and convict the evil doers. What would you do?
You say; “There are some things more important than life and that is dying for self evident truths”
We’ll then let’s not complain when Muslims become emotionally wrought and defend Islamic self-evident beliefs. How they chose to defend becomes as rational as any other.
I disagree. It is not just self-evident. We do not cannibalize. We are civilized; not savages.
We do not measure our belief in money, toil or hardship.
A Torah Scroll can cost from $20,000 to $60,000 and up depending on the quality of the work.
* A typical Torah scroll consists of 245 columns. Each column has 42 lines for a total of 10,290 lines. Each line takes at least 5 minutes to write; so a Torah Scroll takes over 850 hours to write.
* It is hand-written with a quill on hand-manufactured parchment (4 columns to a sheet, except for the first and last sheets) and must be copied letter by letter from a reliable text.
* The 62 sheets of parchment then need to be sewn together with sinews and then typically glued with 2 band-aid-like patches.
* It then needs to be proofread 2 times manually (and nowadays also OCR checked for textual errors) after which it usually requires delicate editing.
In addition there are the costs of the Etz Chaim (poles to which the parchment is attached and rolled around), Mantel-cover and ornaments which can add from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars to the price. They also must be written by someone who is fluent in the laws and is trusted.
If I witnessed the desecration of a Torah scroll and if it were in my power I would off the desecrators. Not for any of the details above because the desecration of a Torah Scroll(aside from the costs) symbolically is a direct attack against Judaism/Jews and the G-d of the Jews.
Yes a book can be replaced and a Torah Scroll can be replaced but an attack is an attack and it must be answered with maximum force and zeal as is appropriate in defense of Jewish beliefs. Our experience has shown that symbols are important and those who would burn a Torah or a printed Chumash would also burn the Jews themselves.
My ancestors fought mostly losing battles even suicidally against the most powerful empires of the time and died in the millions defending not only the physical symbols but also the spiritual symbols of our beliefs. There are some things more important than life and that is dying for self evident truths.
Yes, Mr. Eagle I have questions and some counter commentary to your points. Or you are jesting with your commentary for good sport.
Perhaps I have just returned from an extended trip to Mars and thank you for informing me what has been happening down here on Earth where the burning of a book should be an unpredictable shocking reaction from previous reactions to far less inflammatory events.
I am aware we might expect that egregious reaction to the burning of the Koran if we continue to avoid confronting any uncivilized acts from easily excitable and irrational people whose behavior would lead to incarceration in my country without parol.
You say this was the Muslim equivalent of the Torah that was burned, for no apparent reason, by an obscure and idiotic pastor of a bogus church with less than two dozen members. I understand it sometimes only take a dozen members to make a difference, but never mind.
For no apparent reason?
Permit me to allow you to ask if you have just returned from a trip to Mars since you are aware of events like Salman Rushdie’s book or a Danish artist’s cartoons or sexually harassing captured terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount. Tell me, why is a book different?
I’m sure if a Torah Book or a New Testament book is burned we will soon publish another to replace it without causing savage mayhem. A book is a book unless you are raised to believe the very act of printing is accomplished only by some miraculous unnatural being then there’s the rub. ” Its not the book, stupid”
You say he could have dissected the Qur’an orally and been far more effective in exposing its more egregious precepts.
This implies the savages will be indifferent to any exposition of its — as you say — egregious precepts. These savages are giving you warning by their acts they choose not tolerate any criticism and you better mind your manners if you know what’s good for you. Is that your response?
The pastor proved nothing that had not been proved numerous times before.
If you say it has been proved numerous times before we seem not to have gotten their attention for the savages are not mollified but appear to act like an obnoxious loudmouth bully at a bar shouting obscenities while men are intimidated and try to avoid direct eye contact for fear of physical confrontation so the savage will continue bullying and men will continue to be cowards.
But not the Pastor!
Dan, c’mon now. I don’t know where Belman, Levinson and Laura are on this, but don’t we have enough hard evidence about Muslim radicalism and hatred and intolerance? Do we want to descend to the same depths as the barbarians by believing an unproven “allegation” by Times Online?
I don’t believe this about the Brit police for a NY minute. The Brit police have not sunk so low as yet.
The BBC? Who knows for sure, though we do have evidence that they have falsified the news from time to time and are sympathetic towards Muslim tyrants abroad and Muslim radicals in Britain. This is not your father’s BBC.
What exactly is the alleged pastor, Terry Jones, so desperate about? The former hotel manager and missionary in Europe [Wait a minute, a missionary in Europe?] heads an alleged church that allegedly has 50 families as members in sunny Florida.
Unless there is real evidence, this would be the same kind of blood libel as we have seen against the Jews in other settings. It always amazes me when some Jews sink so low after the experiences in their own community.
Where is Belman, Levinson, laura re above- have they been struck mute?
kessler
One of the biggest scandals in decades, involving Muslim perfidy and not one comment. For shame, shame
Did you forget the previous reactions to far less inflammatory events like Salman Rushdie’s book or a Danish artist’s cartoons or the frat-style sexual embarrassment of captured terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount?
What should be taken into account that out of a billion Muslims, only a few thousand at most reacted murderously, and the reaction was confined to one city.
There were protests against Jones’s action in other places, and they were as peaceful as the typical antiwar or anti-WTO protest.
Yes, he did. Any questions?
Oh, really? Have you just returned from an extended trip to Mars? When you get caught up with what has been happening down here on Earth you will learn that we knew this would be the reaction from previous reactions to far less inflammatory events like Salman Rushdie’s book or a Danish artist’s cartoons or sexually harrassing captured terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount. This was the Muslim equivalent of the Torah that was burned, for no apparent reason, by an obscure and idiotic pastor of a bogus church with less than two dozen members. He could have dissected the Qu’ran verbally and been far more effective in exposing its more egregious precepts.
The pastor proved nothing that had not been proved numerous times before.
BTW, if you are Jewish you may want to knock off the porcine metaphors.
Did Americal Eagle say this: “The very civilized US constitution protects such hate-filled morons.”
But what was the constitution the Pastor burned that encourages hate-filled morons to incite other morons to act as savages just one level above cannibalism where only Pigs may feel safe.
The Pastor acheived his objective,which history will show was not a trival undertaking. Please admit he got everyone’s attention and you will also agree he proved most dramatically and conclusively that Islam is not that peaceful a religion and he may just have made you as secure as a pig.
It’s quite obviously understandable that Mr Ghosh’s brains lie securely lodged between his cheeks.
And I don’t mean the cheeks that sit on his face.
I mean the cheeks he sits on.
It is to Muslim barbarians. This is what happens when members of a religion are brainwashed into believing only their religious texts are “the direct word of God”. These Muslims that run amok at any religious excuse are ignorant, delusional barbarians, pretending that God is under attack. Then they pretend they are defending God against “infidels”.
Also ignorant and delusional is the allegedly Christian pastor in Florida who is a disgrace to the teachings of Christ. What the hell does he think he is achieving by burning the Qu’ran when he could more effectively critique it verbally and educate more people about it? The moron has fewer members in his church than the number of innocent people that have been killed in the violence he instigated. Burning a religious text is an assault on that religion. This is free speech run amok and misused in a psychologically violent way even if no one had been killed as a result. The very civilized US constitution protects such hate-filled morons.
Here is something that disturbs me.
Prosecutorial misconduct, even when it results in the wrongful imprisonment of an innocent man, never results in a violent, let alone murderous, reaction.
Is the Quran really that much more important than the Constitution or justice?
“Those who presume to equate Qur’an burning with the murder of Qur’an burners (or the murder of friends, families, associates or co-religionists of same) are effectively announcing that they personally lack the moral perspective and sound discernment to see the difference between stupid and evil. I suggest that such myopiacs are both stupid AND evil — and that they provide a tailwind to both qualities in this fallen world. I suggest, further, that they need to be told that — calmly, bluntly, unyieldingly. And often.”
More: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/04/stay_out_of_it_general.html
Why is “the world” crazy because some uncivilized barbarians think that their Qu’ran is the word of God, spoken directly by Allah, instead of a religious text written by a man named Muhammad based on his own beliefs and dreams.
I found it interesting that the CBC showed footage of the Muslim crowds – about 1000 men in the shot they showed – racing through the streets on their way to attack the UN. Men at the front were dragging a body by the elbows. Boys were running ahead of them, eyes full of hatred. Did the CBC show it to say that this is what the Floridian caused?
Much of our news condemned the hatred and intolerance of the Floridian only – no observation of any hatred or intolerance in the mob.
Bibles are often destroyed in Islamic countries (along with churches and Christians) – but people they say that doesn’t count because Muslims regard the Koran as holy. Do they want Western Christians, then, to rampage by the millions and kill innocent Muslim citizens in order to prove their piety?
Is the world so crazy that we say the destruction of a book which can be printed anytime anywhere is morally equivalent to the killing of human beings whom we can neither create nor resurrect?
And if they think it their right to control what some obscure man if Florida says or does, then they must think it their right to rule the world. Why do we not see this?
A religion with 15 to 150 millions of fanatics and a billion hostage to these fanatics!
It’s worse than you think. You guys think that Hashem spoke to Moses who wrote the Torah? Well your friendly fellow descendants of Abraham say that the Allah spoke to Muhammad who wrote the Qu’ran. Even TIME Magazine’s World Editor, Bobby Ghosh, who sounds like he’s a Muslim extremist from Bangladesh, says so:
http://bigjournalism.com/wthuston/2011/04/05/time-mag-editor-koran-is-directly-the-word-of-god-bible-just-a-book-written-by-man/
Quote:
In the segment Time Magazine’s World Editor Bobby Ghosh told Chuck Todd that the riots and murders perpetrated by Muslims in Afghanistan were obviously understandable because the Koran is apparently more holy than the Christian Bible. Ghosh averred that it’s important to “keep in mind” that the Koran is “not the same as the Bible to Christians.” Why, you might ask? Why it’s because the Koran is “directly the word of God.” On the other hand, the Bible is just a book “written by men.”
Of course, Ghosh is wholly incorrect that Christians see the Bible as just some storybook “written by men.” After all, the Bible is thought of as “the word of God” by millions of Christians across the world as it has been throughout time. Ghosh’s claim that everyone just accepts the Bible as something “written by men” and easily dismissible or somehow less sacred to Christians on that basis is simply erroneous. It is also extremely offensive.
Unquote.
Of course there is no hard evidence that either the Torah or Qu’ran were directly dictated by Hashem, a.k.a. Allah, and the Christians do not even make a pretense that the New Testament is anything but the remembrances years later of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These are all saith beliefs with only some minimal circumstantial evidence in support.
Islamic riots triggered by burning korans is an opportunity for the people of the West to wake up and to take control into our hands – instead of relying on our appeasement-prone governments.
Imagine, if Germany in earliest days of Hitler appeared to be so “sensitive” to burning of Main Kampf in foreign nations, that German mobs would have attacked those foreign Embassies and businesses in Germany already in 1930s. The appeasement policy would immediately fail, the anti-Hitler alliance would promptly form and the war on Hitler would start when he was not yet ready. How many lives would be saved! Indeed, Nazis were not so thin skinned, and burning Main Kampf would never provoke them into actions damaging their interests.
And now we see that our islamic enemies do have this Achilles heel. Great! Let’s exploit it. Burn and shred korans publicly as a routine practice. This is in our own hands, our 1st Amendment right. We do not need approval of our dhimmy government! Do not listen to that coward dhimmy general Betrayas. Burn korans – and do make those islamic enemies mad.
We are already in a war with them anyway.
http://www.resonoelusono.com/Imminent.htm
The earlier we switch to the real war mode, the better. No, we do not need to annihilate the entire 1.3 billion islamic world in order to win. The victory must mean to destroy the enemy’s sanctuaries Mecca and Medina, to take a full control of a few important oil fields, and to contain the enemy far away in their Crapistans and Islamobads. This is achievable, and this will give the peace a chance for centuries.
Sen. Graham can choose to stay in the party, but his constituents need to boot him out of the Senate at the next opportunity. Guys like Graham can never be counted on when the going gets tough.
The Tea Party must co tinue to purge the Republican party of men like Linday Graham. It is unbelievable that anyone should maintain that the U.S. constitution be amended because some fanatical Mudlims in thar benighted “country” of Afghanistan murdered Those U.N. Officials. What can he be thinking!
It is ironic that it was Joe Biden, a Democrst, maintained that the U.S. Not put more troops I to Afghanistan but just bomb the he’ll out of it if Al Quaeda returns. It must be the only time he was right about something. Leave this barbarians to stew in their own depraved juices. Not a single more American should have to die to promote “Democracy” there.
I am sick and tired of seeing our politicians caving in to these fanatical Sharia followers as if there was some sort of moral equivalence between Islam and western culture.
This is exactly why Breyer & Co. want this free speech banned: The American people are the perceived enemies of the Obama Administration.
He’s right on the money, as usual.
I posted an article on this subject on Usenet.
Predictably, our friend the Revd chimed in.